Fruit characterization of Cocos nucifera L. (ARECACEAE) cultivars from thePacific coast of Costa Rica and the Philippines

Tall coconut cultivars from the Pacific coast of Costa Rica and the Philipp ines (San Ramon, Tagnanan, and Laguna), were evaluated for fruit characteri stics. Most of the introduced cultivars showed extremely large heterogeneit y. A cluster analysis, based on the Ward method, classified the palms into four groups with high internal homogeneity. Some of the evaluated coconut p alms from the Costa Rican Pacific area had nut characteristics similar to t he San Ramon and Tagnanan palm groups but not to the Laguna group. At the a ssociation level used (semipartial R-2 = 0.10), another group which include d the remaining palms sampled from the Costa Rican Pacific coast was consti tuted.